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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Two of my paintings (shown above) were chosen for the Garden of Earthly Delights Exhibition at River Arts in Damariscotta, ME through June 10th. I'm going to do my best to be at the opening from 5-7PM on Friday. Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

There's a tree outside our office window that draws my attention every time I sit in our conference room. Once the office was quiet, I did a few sketches. Each one was a little more detailed. Which one do you like best?

The first few times I sold a painting online, I think it took me longer to pack up the painting than it did to paint it! I tried the prepaid boxes at the post office, but they cost more to mail in the end. So after a few times, and some good advice from the postmistress, I came up with this system. The box comes in a four pack from Staples, the air bags are from orders I've gotten in the mail (mostly from amazon.com). I've started adding a card showing the painting that I'm shipping, with a note about the location of the painting, and my thanks for the order. The black and white slip is an Insured Mail Receipt (required by zatista.com, my online venue in addition to my blog), and the green and white slip is for tracking (Delivery Confirmation Receipt).

Sunday, April 24, 2011

This afternoon I was painting down on the dock in South Freeport, ME. It was great being outside, no beautiful sunshine, but very pleasant temperatures. I started a painting of the little red lobster shack at the end of the fishing float, and got distracted by some eiders as they swam by. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. Rain drove me from my plein air painting, and I did this one from the display on the back of the camera, a new experience for me.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Searching for more sunbathers in my photos, I found this lady, ready to be sketched. I sketch in pen, and rather than erasing, I try to learn from each one, and do another sketch until I get one that I like. They only take a few minutes. Sketch 1 ran off the bottom of my small sketchbook with too large a head and a scrunched up body, so I was on to #2. Proportionally I liked it better, but still wasn't satisfied. And though I liked where the values and shadows were going, I wanted more. Do you like #2 or #3 better?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

I've been studying Clair Harrigan's book, Abstract and Colour Techniques in Painting. She's a wonderful painter and the book is beautiful as well as insightful. She works in mixed media, and she often starts with acrylic ink. I've been wanting to give it a try. So here's one of my first experiments; yellow and a mixed green acrylic ink, with mixed blue acrylic paint on top.

Friday, April 15, 2011

When I'm waiting for a flight I like to sketch people. It's more of a challenge than sketching from a photo, you know you only have a couple of minutes before they're going to move. These are a few I did on a recent trip.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Here's the best of three gouache sketches of pine trees that I painted from my minivan studio, my way of painting plein air when it's raining or cold. Familiar story on the other two, I saw one little thing that wasn't quite right, and once I fixed that, something else was out of kilter, and by the time I was done, I had an overworked, much less interesting painting. Have you ever done that?

Friday, April 8, 2011

I've been reading "Painting Abstracts" by Rolina van Vliet. I've had it for about a year, and my first impressions were mixed, because I only liked a few of the paintings. Perhaps I wasn't ready, but now the concepts intrigue me. This is a combination of several of the exercises. For those who prefer more representational work, the trees are about to pop, and I'll be outside shortly, painting New England.